


Angel, Indeed

by taetaetiger (sexyvanillatiger)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Bad Flirting, Bloodlust, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-14 03:33:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11774631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sexyvanillatiger/pseuds/taetaetiger
Summary: “At this rate, you’re going to end up feeding from him.”No—no. He can’t. He could, but hecan’t. And yet—her words ring perilously true. His desire may become craving. Until he has sated himself one way or the other, he will want for no one else.“I don’t want to hurt him.”Victoria sniffs primly. “Then starve.”





	Angel, Indeed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [huangjinguo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/huangjinguo/gifts).



> K—
> 
> it's late, it's short, and it's not exactly what you asked for. forgive me? love, ellen
> 
>  
> 
> Grace—
> 
> thank you for being a wonderful beta, even when i dragged you in at the last second. love, one indebted bunny

There is nothing in the world with a worth comparable to that of a full belly. Nothing like the warmth coming back into his fingertips, the fullness swelling in his cheeks. The thrum of a pulse in his stomach, the flood of saliva in his jowls, the _arousal_ ; no born vampire will ever understand how close to living Yifan feels when he has a full belly. He can almost remember himself, a young man all those thousands of years ago, when he gorges himself on blood. He feels real again.

He feels life flushing into his palms. His lips tingle. He drops the girl into the grass, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He pulls back to a red smear, rolling up his sleeve to keep it from spreading to his clothes. His mouth waters, drool rolling down his wrist as he licks himself clean. Only now that he’s full does he realize that he’d been so hungry.

It isn’t the bite that kills them, he knows. It’s his appetite. The girl’s skin is ashen. The bite on her neck doesn’t bleed. The gash on her forehead has dried up, leaving only streaks of flaky brown in her hair and across her face. Horror warps her; and she’d been so arrogant. Scoffed at him for a half-assed costume, not seeing even a fraction of the grace before her. But he’d bled her, emptied her, sated himself on her thankless existence. How fortunate she would be to feed him for another few weeks, to be immortal with him for even that long.

He leaves her in the woods, far enough beyond the tree line, where the scavengers will hopefully find her before the neighborhood children do. In a few long strides, he’s passed into someone’s backyard. Across the street, Victoria’s front door is still wide open. People and loud music spill out of every orifice of the stark two-story roost. They crawl like ants across her roof, fall like twigs trampled underfoot all across her front lawn. He passes them by with nary a glance; after several thousand years, he can no longer tell if it’s apathy or arrogance. He steps over a body, passed out or merely fallen into the grass, and tramps through the open door. Victoria catches him in the entrance hall.

“You could have at least tried,” she shouts. Her voice is dim, almost sounding far away, like it’s been whittled down in its travels through the bedlam.

“What?” he shouts back at her. She tucks a lock of hair behind her ears. Her real ones, that is; not the velvet cat ears on her headband. Yifan looks down at her chest, and then her belly, and then her legs, and then her tail. Not her tail, but the one that she’s pinned to the back of her black corset. “At least I didn’t dress up in something like that,” he shouts. She punches him on the arm.

“You didn’t dress up as anything,” she shouts at him.

In response, he flashes his teeth, still slightly stained, as though he’s just finished a bottle of red wine. She narrows her eyes at him and yanks on his leather jacket, pulling it askew. “You stink,” she says, even though she’s the only one who would be able to smell him.

“Why’d you dress up as a cat? You should have dressed up as a bat,” he tells her.

“Go fuck yourself.”

She leaves him like that, tail swaying as she walks away. She disappears into the crowd too quickly for Yifan to appreciate her going, but his disappointment huffs into a shock of surprise, pounding in his chest as a full, fresh heartbeat. An angel in the living room. Curls falling into his eyes and soft, white-feathered wings strapped to his back and—inexplicably—a headband with white bunny ears atop his soft, blond head. Yifan stands still, staring shamelessly. A soft pink smile stretches across the angel’s porcelain face. He’s talking to someone dressed in dark colors and smudged with eyeliner. Yifan pays him no mind when he approaches the angel.

“I didn’t know rabbits went to heaven,” Yifan says, his lips dangerously close to the angel’s ear. The angel startles and turns his head to appraise him. Like most people, he starts at Yifan’s collar, and then slowly works his way up, taking in Yifan’s height as he goes. There’s a healthy flush in his cheeks, the same soft pink as his mouth. Had Yifan not just fed, his stomach would be rolling with want.

Instead, the want settles low in his groin.

“Oh, these?” the angel asks, reaching up to straighten the bunny ears. “My roommate just thought it would be funny. He wanted me to be a bunny for Halloween. He—” The angel turns to where his friend was standing just a moment ago, but they both find that they’re alone. “Oh,” the angel says.

Yifan, the cat that caught the canary, slides his arm around the angel’s waist. “I can help you find him,” he says lowly in the angel’s ear. He can’t tell if the warmth he’s feeling is the angel’s or his own. He can hear every one of the angel’s shallow breaths that pass between them. The angel turns his head, his exhales warm and humid on Yifan’s neck. Yifan, who can finally feel such a subtle sensation after days of numbness, reflexively tightens his fingers around the angel’s waist. The angel’s next exhale comes out almost sounding like a moan.

Yifan turns his head to initiate an embrace. The angel, at the same time, places his hands on Yifan’s chest and leans back, looking up into Yifan’s face, none the wiser. Smoothly, Yifan straightens, looking down into the angel’s pretty face. “I think he’s in the kitchen,” the angel says over the din. Yifan’s back teeth grate together. He should have used a different line. The angel is already turning around to leave. When the angel takes his wrist to tug him along, his irritation does not abate, but it is shaken.

Victoria’s kitchen is brighter than the living room, the lights over the island glowing a pale, modern white. Her chrome appliances reflect the vibrant reds of vodka labels and the sweet blue glass of a blueberry liqueur. The island is littered with red plastic cups, amongst which are a rainbow of handles and mixers. Guests are gathered around the room in twos and threes, and none of them look like the man who was with the angel only moments ago.

“Oh,” the angel says softly, his eyes flitting across the kitchen before returning to Yifan. “Maybe he’s in the yard?”

Yifan bends a bit so that he can speak softly. He asks, “Why do you want to find him so bad?” The angel turns his head to look Yifan in the eye. Yifan smiles his softest, most human smile. “Are you trying to leave?”

The angel laughs, rosy cheeks swelling prettily. His flush is so sweet that Yifan’s mouth floods with slaver. Yifan finds himself lost in the pink of the angel’s lips, only startled from his daze when the angel says, “I’m Yixing.”

“Yixing,” Yifan repeats reverently. “Of all the angels in heaven, only one as beautiful as you could have such a name.” Yixing guffaws, but Yifan takes no offense. He can see Yixing’s embarrassment clearly, but underneath, he hopes that he is also seeing pleasure. Yixing reaches up to straighten the ears atop his head, though they are not askew. Yifan’s smile spreads at the nervous gesture.

“Oh, you’re a vampire!” Yixing says, his eyes widening and his hand reaching out to Yifan, though never quite crossing the full distance. Yifan’s stomach clenches for a moment, but it passes. It’s Halloween.

“Yes,” he says.

“Shouldn’t you be wearing a cape or something?”

“A cape?”

The bunny ears bounce as Yixing nods, reaching forward to lift up Yifan’s jacket for inspection. “You know, like Dracula. Did you ever read Dracula?”

Yifan frowns, but doesn’t push Yixing’s hands away. They settle lightly on his chest, seeming to seek permission to stay. Yifan allows it as he says, “I’m not dressed up as Dracula.”

Yixing hums thoughtfully. “You could have put on some glitter.”

“Glitter?”

“Yeah, so you could be Edward Cullen.”

Yifan’s frown flattens. “Edward Cullen is not a vampire.”

Yixing laughs, fingers roving the lines of Yifan’s jacket once more. “Yeah, he is. The book is—”

“No.” Yixing’s gaze snaps up to meet his immediately, and only then does Yifan realize how harshly he’s spoken. Their gaze holds precariously, the look on Yixing’s face quite the rabbit that discovers the fox. If this is what scares Yixing off, Yifan will accept that. He can see it in Yixing’s eyes; the surprise, the trepidation, the wariness. Yifan waits for the axe to fall, surprised to catch a laugh instead. Yixing is laughing at him.

“Oh my god, you’re one of those vampire purists,” he says.

Well. In a way, he isn’t wrong. Yifan laughs along with him, if a bit quieter and more reserved. He thinks that if Yixing is this charmed with his most boorish self, then he might be able to take him home tonight. The thought has only just crossed his mind when Yixing’s roommate slides an arm around Yixing’s waist, tugging him away.

“Hey, Minseok is offering us a ride home.”

Yixing glances at his friend, and then back towards Yifan. “I had fun tonight,” he says, before letting himself be pulled away. Yifan is left stranded in the wake, the rolling waters of the party slowing to stillness. He curses to himself, knowing that his chance for the evening has been wasted, that it’s too late to find someone to sate this sacred arousal, when Yixing runs back up to him, thrusting a hand into Yifan’s pockets. Yifan is too startled at first to speak.

“Here,” Yixing says, tapping away at Yifan’s phone before Yifan even realizes he has it. He presses it back into Yifan’s hands before disappearing once more, this time seemingly for good. Yifan unlocks his phone screen to see a new text thread with an unsaved number, and a single message from his number.

 _Edward Cullen_.

 

“I have to see him again.”

Victoria glances at him through her sunglasses, but she doesn’t give him the dignity of even seeing her eyes. She slurps at her frappé and hoists her bag up higher onto her shoulder. “Have to?” she asks.

“I want him,” Yifan insists.

“Want sounds more appropriate.”

Yifan has been texting with Yixing for almost three full days now (the first of which he spent begging Yixing to change his contact name), and he feels no closer to seeing him again as he did when he watched Yixing disappear into the fray at Victoria’s party. The tide of November has never before been so cruel.

“You don’t understand,” he says, “I’ve never seen anybody like him before.”

Victoria guffaws. “You’ve seen hundreds like him,” she says.

Her comment is nonessential, so he ignores it. “I have to have him. I should have had him that night. If I never see him again, I’m going to go crazy.”

Victoria actually slows at this, lowering her sunglasses down her nose. She stops, letting the people on the sidewalk mill around them. Yifan stares her down. She rolls her eyes. “At this rate, you’re going to end up feeding from him.”

No— _no_. He can’t. He could, but he _can’t_. The potential is in him, this desire warping as he becomes hungrier and hungrier. The colder the days become, the more wretched he will be, the more wanting for flesh; not for pleasure, but for blood. His desire may become craving. Until he has sated himself one way or the other, he will want for no one else.

“I don’t want to hurt him.”

Victoria sniffs primly. “Then starve.”

 

“How do you even know him?” Yifan asks three days later, when he’s becoming desperate to see Yixing before his veins empty and his belly yearns.

“I don’t know,” she tells him, pulling a DVD off of the shelf and reviewing it before replacing it. “I think he’s a friend of Jongin’s. Like, they’re in the same dance class or something.”

“He’s a student?”

“Maybe,” she snaps. “If you’re not going to help me pick out a movie, go wait on the sidewalk.”

 

There’s a coffee shop in-between the scattered school buildings on the east side of the sprawling campus. It’s close enough to the fine arts halls that when Yifan invites Yixing to meet him there one of these afternoons, Yixing’s immediate noes become a tentative, _when?_. Yifan offers, _tomorrow?_ , and Yixing answers, _2 o clock?_.

 _Perfect_ , Yifan tells him.

 

It’s been long enough that Yifan can almost smell the feed around him on his walk to the café. Vessels gorged with blood, pulsing so loud that he can hear each heart that he passes. He breathes in deep, stirring the predator in him, but his stomach turns. Every drop of blood around him smells sour. The anticipation of Yixing’s sweet scent has made him finicky, which scares him. Waiting in the coffee shop, he wonders if he’s waited too long, if he’ll be strong enough to even desire Yixing in a way that won’t waste him.

He doesn’t order anything because the very idea of it nauseates him. When Yixing comes in, he offers to buy for him, but Yifan turns him down. “I don’t drink coffee,” he says.

Yixing laughs. “Then why did you want to meet at a coffee shop?”

“Because you said no to everything else.”

Yixing hums thoughtfully in response. “I’m going to get a hot chocolate. I’ll be right back.”

Yifan watches him the entire time; the soft fall of his hair over his forehead, the hoodie he’s bunched up under his jacket, his jeans rolled up so that his ankles are bare, even in this weather. His mouth waters from such a mild glimpse of flesh, and Yifan feels much older than he usually does. Yixing glances back over his shoulder as he waits, and he finds Yifan staring. Yifan just smiles and waves.

“Your eyes are really weird,” Yixing says when he sits down. Yifan scoffs.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Take it however you want,” Yixing says, lifting himself up out of his seat to bring their faces closer. For a moment, Yifan forgets to breathe. “They seem lighter than they were at the party. Maybe. They’re almost—does your family have cataracts or something?”

Lost in the curls of Yixing’s hair and the pink of his lips, Yifan manages to say, “I don’t know. I never really noticed that kind of thing.”

“Hm,” Yixing says, dropping back down and pulling his hot chocolate close. Yifan can taste the distance between them, so he props his elbows up onto the table and leans forward.

“If I say that we do, will you get in my face again?”

Yixing gives him a smile with very tight corners, contrary, as though he’s trying to pull it down. “You want me to get in your face?”

 _I want you to get on my face_ , Yifan doesn’t say. “Wouldn’t mind,” he says instead.

Yixing chews on his lip, eyes flicking conspicuously down Yifan's face and then back up to his eyes. Yifan, the seasoned predator, waits. Lets him creep his way forward, lets Yixing's curiosity do the hunting for him. Yifan wonders how often Yixing has known appreciation like this, and if any of his lovers had ever seen desire so clearly in his eyes. Yifan is so entranced in this spell that it is only broken when Yixing has long receded back into his seat, reaching down for his backpack.

"I have class in twenty minutes," he says. Yifan breathes in deeply, hardly able to believe that this is real, that he's right here, that Yixing is within reach. And that he's leaving. "But," he says.

The word hangs in the air, salvation on a string. Yifan needs more than a _but_ , he needs something more immediate, but if this is what Yixing will give him, he paws at it like the starving beast he's becoming. "But?" he asks.

Yixing clears his throat, reaching out to play with his coffee cup. "You could," he offers hesitantly. "I don't know. You could walk me to class?"

November has never been so disastrously short. Never, since Yifan's death, has he feared like this. And never, in his centuries of existence, has he feared himself. Not like this. He has never regretted a kill, much less one that he has not yet executed. No born vampire will ever understand this yearning inside him, something so insatiably human, this hunger for companionship, almost as strong as his hunger for sustenance. How he could be so at war with himself over a thing he wants to eat, one way or another?

It's cold. The sky above them is a haze of clouds, indecisive of its own shade of grey. He and his prey walk side by side, silently, so close to one another that they jostle together occasionally, and, much to Yifan's surprise and great pleasure, Yixing does not shy away as Yifan expected him to. Yixing walks beside him, and almost indecisively, he reaches out and brushes Yifan's hand, taking hold of it in such a way that it seems that it was Yifan's doing the whole time.

Yixing's building is just in their path, so close that Yifan has to slow down just to savor these last few moments. He leans down to speak softly to Yixing, telling him, "You've got me going crazy."

Yixing turns his head up to meet Yifan's gaze. Their faces are so close. How many times has Yifan been here, but never closer? "Why?" Yixing asks, smiling like he's trying to keep the mood light between them.

"Because I can never tell what you're thinking." Yixing opens his mouth to speak, but Yifan interrupts him so that he doesn't have to hear excuses or dismissals. "Sometimes you seem like all you want to do is get away from me, but then," he pauses and squeezes Yixing's hand.

"But then?" Yixing asks. They've stopped by now. Yixing hasn't pulled away. Yifan has resisted the desire to come closer.

"But then there are times," Yifan says, lifting Yixing's hand close to his face. "When I think that you feel the same way I do." He pulls Yixing's hand forward, not kissing it but pressing it to his mouth. Yixing's vein pulses beneath his lips. It would be so easy.

Yixing inhales sharply, his hand tightening around Yifan's but not pulling away. He flushes so beautifully, only retreating when Yifan makes no move to do so. "I have to," he begins, but the words fall from the air with nothing to hold them up.

Yifan rises to his full height, stepping closer to Yixing. "I just want to know where I stand with you."

"You're being so forward," Yixing says, like a reluctant accusal. "I, um. My class is starting." He stumbles a few steps back from Yifan, and then turns and trots towards the building. Only when he's ascending the stone steps to the front door does he turn back and shout, "I'll text you."

Yifan has not felt so offended since Yixing dubbed him _Edward Cullen_.

 

"A week and a half can't possibly be this bad," she tells him. Derisively, no less.

"You don't understand," he tells her, however many times he’s told her before.

"I understand just fine," Victoria scoffs. No, he thinks. She really doesn't. "Just—don't move too fast. Don't push it too far with him. You're going to scare him off."

"What's going to _scare him off_ is if I accidentally try to _eat_ him while we're fucking."

"Oh my god, you're really trying to fuck him," she laughs, almost incredulously.

Yifan rolls himself over, hooking his chin on the arm of his couch to glare at her over it. "Yes, I'm really trying," he says. "What do you think I've been doing this whole time? Trying to sell him something?"

Victoria sighs and picks up the remote, pausing the movie. "No, I thought you would come to your senses and just move on with it. I didn't think you would actually go crazy for him."

"Victoria, it's—it's not even just hunger, it's—"

"A craving," she says, looking him dead in the eye. "You'll get over it. And if you don't, just take a taste. You've got an eternity ahead of you, you won't be hung up on him forever."

It hurts to hear her say it like that. As though he can't remember the pain of his human relationships, ones that he lost so long ago that he shouldn't even be able to remember their faces. His mother, his village, the woman he loved. He’ll never say it to Victoria, never let himself look as naïve as the night he was turned. The very night he lost everything precious to him. He rolls himself back over and turns his face to the movie. A man stands in a field of daffodils; probably something romantic.

“I don’t know why you even watch these movies,” he says snidely. “You obviously don’t care about romance.”

“Shut up, Yifan.”

 

_my class gets out at 9:15 tonight…wanna come walk me home?_

All he’d wanted to know was where he stood with Yixing. That’s all he’d asked. This—this tells him nothing. Worse than that, Yifan is more confused than ever. Worse yet, his hunger is beginning to claw him from inside. The desire to feed hurts so much that it radiates into the back of his throat, how he’s so empty he could take one hundred lives and not feel satiated. His craving haunts him even more so.

 _Yeah_ , Yifan texts back. _sounds great._

 

It isn’t. Campus is dead by this time of night, all other classes having ended at least an hour ago. Yifan waits on the steps of the school building, one hand shoved in his pocket so he looks cool, the other scrolling on his phone. He’s at the top of his feed with no new content in the past five minutes, and so he scowls and closes the app before shoving his phone in his pocket and glancing back at the building. Yixing’s class should have ended eight minutes ago, and Yifan is still out here waiting. The wind blows his hair across his forehead, but he can hardly feel it. He taps his foot. Scuffs at the ground. Sighs and glances at the building again.

The front doors split down the middle, opening to a small crowd of maybe fifteen students, or at least no more than that. The first few are girls, clumped together against the cold, and then a group of three trotting down the stairs as though they can race the barbarity of winter. And then, haloed by the doorframe, face alight by the bluish glow of his phone, Yixing ambles out at a pace maybe half that of Yifan’s heartbeat. What little blood is left in his body races, thrill yet feeling so human inside him.

Yixing glances up, and Yifan can see his smile just before he puts his phone away, his face thus shadowed in dark. Yifan watches him the whole way, until Yixing is standing so close that the toes of their shoes almost touch. Yixing burrows deeper into his scarf, shoving his hands deeper into the pocket of his hoodie, and he smiles.

“Aren’t you cold?” he asks.

“Now that you’re here, I’m burning up,” Yifan tells him, leaning in with a grin. Yixing laughs with a start, muffling it into his shoulder as soon as he seems to catch himself.

“That was awful,” he says. “Let me see your hand.” Yifan gives one to him, flinching at the startled look in Yixing’s eyes. “Oh my god, you’re freezing.”

Yifan shrugs and smiles politely. For all that she is killing him now, winter will never be so kind as when she covers his lies. “That’s what I get for coming here early.”

“Wow,” Yixing says. “Come on, my apartment isn’t that far from here.”

He loops his arm through Yifan’s, pulling him off of the stairs and towards the sidewalk. Yifan stumbles after him, surprised by this new vivacity within his angel. Yixing ploughs forward as though pursued by something more dangerous than the wind. Yifan stretches his stride just to keep up. “In a hurry?” Yifan asks with a laugh.

Yixing glances up at Yifan with a curious smile on his face. He doesn’t answer.

The light outside of Yixing’s apartment building is a golden yellow, almost bronze the further out it stretches. In it, Yixing is a gold flaked cherub. Only once they’re inside can Yifan see how his pale skin frames the overpoweringly rosy flush of his cheeks and nose. Yifan pulls Yixing closer where their arms are linked, wanting to reach up and caress him, but knowing that he ought to not. Yixing meets his gaze, though Yifan can’t read him so clearly.

“Well,” he says, not letting go of Yixing. “Here we are.”

“Why don’t you come upstairs?” Yixing says. “I’ll make you something hot to drink.”

Yifan allows himself a moment of quiet shock, one that he feels he rightfully deserves. Upstairs? Upstairs to Yixing’s apartment. The two of them, upstairs to Yixing’s apartment, when not a week ago Yifan couldn’t even mention his own place without Yixing pushing him away as though burned.

“Um,” he says. And then, “Yeah, yes. Yeah.”

Yixing smiles, eyes creasing into crescents. He pulls Yifan towards the stairs, ascending however many flights, Yifan can’t count them right now. He can’t do anything but stare at the flesh of Yixing’s cheeks, feel his pulse where it flutters beneath the layers of his clothes. Here in the light, in the warmth, Yixing’s body opens and his blood races back to the surface, where Yifan can smell it best. He sniffs deeply, opening his mouth to let the scent drift over his tongue.

But Yixing really does mean to make him a drink. He sits down at the kitchen table, watching Yixing over the counter as he works. Yixing has already put water on to boil when he asks, “Do you like tea?”

“Um…not really,” Yifan says, trying to focus on what Yixing is saying.

“Hot chocolate?” Yixing asks.

“No.”

Yixing circles around the counter to where Yifan is sitting, resting his hip against the table and crossing his arms. Yifan looks up at him; Yixing looks down. “Then what do you like?”

Yifan swallows, though his throat is dry as it’s ever been. He wants. He wants so badly that he can hardly think to even answer Yixing’s question. The silence percolates, Yixing’s smile twisting into a frown, and then fading into something entirely different. Yifan, hunger driving him to audacity, reaches forward and places a hand on Yixing’s thigh. Low, close to the knee, and yet as gaudy a statement as though he had reached through Yixing’s clothes. Yixing sucks in a breath, his eyes flicking down, and then back up.

And then he leans in.

Yifan pushes up out of his chair to meet Yixing in the middle, their lips colliding so hard that Yifan almost cuts himself on his own teeth. He slides a hand around Yixing’s neck, still cold enough to make him shiver hard, and they both feel it as far down as they’re pressed together. Yixing opens his mouth, and before Yifan can even stop himself, he presses his tongue forward. The inside of Yixing’s mouth is so sweet, so pink and warm. Pulsing. He pulls Yixing even closer, the want fogging over his mind. Yixing pushes against him, Yifan doesn’t even know how much later, but he pulls him back in in response.

“Yifan, wait,” Yixing says, twisting his face away from Yifan’s embrace. Yifan trails his lips down Yixing’s neck instead, horribly tempted. “The water, hold on,” he says, pushing out of Yifan’s arms just as his lips part, tongue skimming across his skin.

Only once Yixing is gone does Yifan fall back into himself, the shock of his own bloodlust almost painful. He’s frozen with distress, mortification binding him to his spot. Yixing moves about the kitchen, turning off the stove and pouring the warm water into the sink. He sets the pot to the side and returns to Yifan, only to find him like this.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. Yifan flicks his eyes up to Yixing, horrified by the concern he sees there.

“I—“ he starts, not knowing where to go from there. Yixing flushes immediately, so suddenly that Yifan sways forward towards the scent.

“If you—I mean, if this isn’t—if you’re not comfortable with this, we don’t have to…” Yixing wraps his arms around himself, ducking his head and frowning up at Yifan from below his lashes. Yifan sucks in a breath, filled with the desire for Yixing.

“No, that’s not—Yixing, you don’t. I just. I want you to be safe.”

Yixing’s eyes widen, his arms tightening. “What do you mean?”

Yifan tightens his hands into fists. “I mean—I want you,” he chokes out. “I really…”

“Yifan,” Yixing says softly. “I know. I want you, too.”

“No,” Yifan snaps. “You don’t understand. I _want_ you—it’s, it’s so strong, I can hardly—“ He cuts himself short, pressing his lips together tight so that he can’t say anything that would frighten Yixing.

“Yifan?” Yixing says nonetheless. “You’re scaring me a little.”

Yifan closes his eyes. He can’t leave. He should, but he can’t. Not when he’s this close. Maybe it would’ve been better if he’d never come at all. But no, he reminds himself. No. It could get so much worse. He opens his eyes and looks directly at Yixing, who gasps and stumbles back.

“What—Yifan, what—your _eyes_ —“

Yifan shifts forward, and then changes his mind and takes a step back. “Yixing, remember when we met?” he asks, his voice strained. Yixing is against the opposite wall when he answers.

“Yes? I mean, no, I don’t. I don’t know.”

“My costume? Yixing, what was my costume?”

“You—Yifan, stop, this isn’t funny,” Yixing says, almost like he’s begging. “Please, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please stop.”

“Yixing,” Yifan says, as calmly as he can. Yixing is breathing so fast, his pulse is so strong, and yet he’s so pale. No sweet flush, no pink lips. His brow is pinched in fear. His hands are clenched. He looks so small. Rather than blood, he smells sweat. Yifan feels a knot inside him, uncomfortable, like he’s choking on something.

Guilt, maybe?

“Yixing,” Yifan says again, putting his hands out placatingly and taking a step forward. Yixing flinches, but he doesn’t move. Yifan takes another step. Yixing shrinks further into himself. In this way, Yifan inches forward. Only when he’s within arms’ length does Yixing scramble to his feet, throwing himself towards the front door. Yifan jumps forward, crying, “Yixing, Yixing _wait_.” He grabs Yixing by his hoodie, swinging him back so that he circles on his momentum into Yifan’s open arms. He chokes out a cry, so pitiful that it quells whatever beast paces inside of Yifan, for however brief a time.

“Yixing, I’m sorry,” Yifan rushes to say. “I don’t want to scare you, I’m sorry, you just—I need you to know this.”

“Oh my god,” Yixing whimpers, his voice barely a breath. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Yixing,” he says desperately. Yixing says nothing for a long while, his eyes searching Yifan’s face and filled with nothing but fear. Yifan tries to open himself wide for Yixing’s inspection. He parts his lips, wanting to spread them back to show Yixing, to really show him, but not daring to snarl.

“What’s _wrong_ with you?” Yixing asks again, softer this time.

“Yixing, I’m—“ Yifan huffs in frustration. “I’m—can’t you see it? Fuck, Yixing, I’m a—vampire,” he spits out finally.

Yixing stiffens, but doesn’t recoil. “That’s not funny,” he insists.

“I know,” Yifan agrees.

After a pause, Yixing whimpers, “This is so stupid.” He sniffles. “Let me see your teeth.”

Now, Yifan shows him. Yifan shows him everything. He bares himself so completely that he may as well have a holly stake through his heart. Yixing’s judgment could be equally as piercing. Yet even now, Yifan is unable to read him. He gives himself permission to stroke his thumb against Yixing’s back in a way that could be comforting, were they in any other circumstance than this one. To his surprise, the coiled muscles of Yixing’s back unwind. He reaches up, his hand trembling, and touches Yifan’s cold cheek. He gasps, recoiling, but only for a moment. He traces his way to Yifan’s mouth, reaching too far in and accidentally pricking himself on Yifan’s fang. Yifan sucks in a breath, closing his lips around Yixing’s thumb.

Yixing cries out in surprise, pushing against Yifan, but Yifan does little more than suck. The taste of Yixing on his tongue is everything and more—it’s euphoria, nothing he’s felt in hundreds, or even thousands of years. He moans, letting Yixing yank his thumb free, dropping his head forward onto Yixing’s shoulder. Yixing tightens, hand still pushing against Yifan’s chest, but less intently now.

“So, what,” he asks, his voice weak. “You want to suck my blood? Are you going to _kill_ me?” he asks, very quietly panicked. Yifan’s mind is clouded with lust and bliss.

“Well,” he slurs. “I was hoping I could fuck you.”

There’s a pause, and then Yixing barks out a laugh. “What?” he asks, or snaps, or laughs.

Yifan lifts his head just enough to look into Yixing’s eyes. “I mean, you also taste really good—like really good. Like I’d love to get just a little taste. Maybe, just like—I don’t know.” He breathes deeply, calmed by Yixing’s scent. “But I also really, really want to fuck you. And then—I don’t know. It’s kind of late for dinner. Breakfast?” he asks.

Yixing stares at him for another long moment, his mouth hanging open. “What _are_ you?” he whispers, almost as though to himself.

“Your charming suitor,” Yifan says without hesitation.

“Oh my god.” Yixing huffs out a laugh. “Do you—oh my god, I can’t believe—do you want to…”

“Can we?” Yifan asks.

Yixing presses his hand against his head, breathing out slowly. Yifan watches him. He knows—Yixing thinks he’s dreaming. He thinks this isn’t real. Yifan knows. Even now, he remembers. But sooner than he expects, Yixing lets his hand slide down his face and back onto Yifan’s chest. “Yeah,” he says. “Okay.”

 

Beneath him, Yixing is burning. Yifan is intoxicated on his warmth, his touch, his scent. He moves so wild, serpentine beneath Yifan’s cold touch. Yifan can only grind against him in wanton, jerky motions, the body of a hunter rather than an angel. He knows he must be freezing against Yixing’s hot skin, but Yixing shows no sign of discomfort. He wraps his arms around Yifan and holds him close, even when Yifan bares his teeth to Yixing’s throat. More than once, he begs Yifan, “Please don’t hurt me,” and each time, Yifan whispers to him,

“Never.”

Like nothing either of them have ever felt before, they meet at an inherent juxtaposition; the heat within Yixing and the lack thereof within Yifan. Yifan is so numb that he can only smell Yixing’s warmth, taste it on the back of his tongue, hear it beating in his throat.

“Aiyo-wei,” Yixing whines in direct opposition. “You’re so cold.”

Yifan bites his own lip so he doesn’t bite Yixing. “Yeah.” Something in his voice must be off because Yixing cups a hand around Yifan’s jaw, lifting his face up so that he can peer into Yifan like an opened bosom and ask him,

“Will it hurt?”

Yifan hides himself by burying his face into Yixing’s neck. He sucks in a breath, and lets it out slowly. He has no intention of answering Yixing’s question. He clings to the hope that this will be enough—that this will sate his craving, and he will be able to feed on lives less precious than this one. If he can even gather the strength to rise to arousal, he hopes that this will be enough. Yixing squeezes him, with his legs around Yifan’s hips, with an arm around his shoulders, with a hand at the back of his neck. “Yifan, will it hurt? Will it—I don’t know. Will it kill me?”

Yifan lifts his head. “I don’t want it to.”

“If you don’t—you know—will you die?”

Yifan holds Yixing’s eyes, as much as he wants to look away. “No,” he says. “I’ll go crazy.”

While Yixing processes the implications of that statement, Yifan begins to press cold kisses to his neck. Yixing curls his fingers into Yifan’s hair. He’s quiet; maybe thinking. Yifan doesn’t stray from his trail down Yixing’s neck to the outer reaches of his shoulder when Yixing asks him, “Can you control it?”

He’s never tried. In all the centuries since he’s been turned, Yifan’s hunger is renowned. Not a body left breathing when he has taken his fill. When he was first turned, he didn’t know how to control himself; when he began to understand this new body of his, he didn’t care to try. Until this moment, with this blood beneath him, the body that holds it, he’s never asked himself such a question.

“I don’t know,” he says honestly. “But I want to.” He doesn’t mention how he’s hungry, how to this moment he wasn’t sure if he would take Yixing in his belly or his bed. He pushes himself up on his elbows. “Do you think you’re dreaming?” he asks.

Yixing twists his mouth to the side. “I don’t know how I can’t be.”

Yifan hums in response. “And in this dream, you’re willing to let me feed from you?”

“It sounds weird when you say it like that.” He lets his legs fall from around Yifan’s hips, sprawling open on the bed. Yifan slides down, pushing Yixing’s tank top up to nip at his stomach, pushing his boxers around to nose at his legs. Yixing whines and twists, drawn to the touch but repulsed by the cold. “I want you to try.”

“Are you sure?”

Instead of acceding outright, Yixing says, “Please don’t kill me.”

The pulse in his thigh is thundering. Down here, Yifan can hear it above everything else. There is no margin of error; he is a hunter, and he has been hunting for centuries. Flicking his eyes up to Yixing one last time, he sinks into the sweet inside of Yixing’s thigh and moans. He laps up the blood as it comes, oozing so readily to the surface. Yixing is the sweetest thing Yifan can remember tasting. He wraps his arm around Yixing’s leg, hugging him close with a grip on his hip. Yixing is squeezing his shoulder, bearing through the pain, until finally he begins hitting Yifan to get his attention.

“Yifan, wait, please—I can’t feel my leg, please stop.”

Yifan, for the first time since he was turned, dislodges his teeth from a still-bleeding wound. He leans up and presses his palm down hard against Yixing’s leg. Yixing whimpers, but he doesn’t look as much in pain as Yifan thought he would. Yixing glances up at him, blinking blearily. Paler than he should be. Yifan’s stomach rolls, but it’s filled. Not completely, but enough that he can feel warmth in his fingertips, the beat of his heart. He is not so gorged that arousal comes, whether he desires it or not, and for that he’s grateful. The sight of Yixing so pitiful and weak has him almost nauseous.

“You still wanna?” Yixing slurs, not really finishing his question but knowing that Yifan knows what he’s asking anyways.

“Yeah,” Yifan says, “but not right now.”

Yixing hums, closing his eyes. Yifan pulls away. “I’ll be right back.”

Yixing only has a haphazard collection of plastic cups in his cupboard. He pulls one out and fills it to the top with water, bringing it back to Yixing and propping him up so he can drink it. When he’s finished, he gets another one, even though Yixing doesn’t want to drink it. “I want you to drink more,” he tells him, but Yixing can only drink so much before he outright refuses. Yifan sets the cup to the side for later, and he lowers Yixing into bed. Yixing reaches up and weaves a finger into Yifan’s hair.

“You’re warm now,” Yixing says.

“Yeah,” Yifan says, checking Yixing’s thigh again. It’s stopped bleeding, already scabbing over. Yifan never knew that it would do that.

“It didn’t hurt,” Yixing says. “Well, much. I mean, I felt it. It kind of hurt, like a lot, but not as bad as I thought. Like—I don’t know. It wasn’t that deep, even though you—“ He pauses to take a breath. “Did you do that? Make it not hurt as bad?”

“Maybe,” Yifan says. He never knew that, either.

“Stay with me,” Yixing says, probably pulling at Yifan’s arm, but so weak that it’s hard to tell if he is or not. “Now that you’re warm. Please.”

Without arguing, Yifan slides next to Yixing, working the covers over both of them. Yixing is cool to the touch, but he’s not cold. Yifan can feel his pulse—not only hear it, but feel it, almost as though it’s within him, and though it is fast and weak, it’s there. It grows stronger the longer Yifan listens. Yixing is fast asleep by now. Yifan holds him close. He still wants him, he wants him so badly. And yet—and yet this time, he doesn’t hesitate to tell himself that he’s got him.

Tomorrow is going to be different. Yixing will wake up in Yifan’s arms, and he’ll remember. He’ll know that it was real, that it was no dream, that Yifan is exactly what he says he is. But he’ll see that he’s alive, that his wound is clean and dry, that the color has returned to his toes. Yixing makes Yifan believe that there is still good inside him, something he never cared to seek out in all these empty years since he lost that part of him.

Fitting, Yifan thinks, that the first thing to remind him of the humanity not only in his pulse, but in his heart, would be a human. That if he could have this, he could only have it for a blink in the span of his existence. He holds Yixing closer. He has him right now. It’s something about Yixing that makes him appreciate that all the more.

 

_i’m changing ur contact back to edward cullen_

_please don’t_

_i’m gonna_

_yixing no_  
_i’ve seen dynasties go down_  
_i’ve seen the birth and death of nations_  
_i have seen humanity at its best and at its worst_  
_i am thousands of years old_  
_stop calling me edward cullen_

_too late_


End file.
